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Gem
Gems are simple, (usually) lightweight items you find in the dungeon. They come in three varieties: valuable gems, worthless glass which looks similar, and gray stones. Another type of item that uses the same glyph is the rock, which is dealt with differently. Valuable (identified) gems may be sold for relatively large amounts of money at most general stores, which makes them valuable as a compact form of money. However, shopkeepers will always buy unidentified gems as if they are worthless glass, and will always sell unidentified gems as if they are valuable. (Gems are subject to the random +33% surcharge in recent versions.) Valuable gems may also be thrown to a co-aligned unicorn in order to get a large Luck increase. Throwing any valuable or worthless gem to a unicorn will pacify them, and will variably raise or lower luck in certain cases. See the unicorn page for more details. More commonly, since money and Luck are overabundant later in the game, players save all of the valuable gems they find, stashing them away so that they can be added to the player's score upon the completion of the game. Glass and rocks are relatively worthless, though they can be used for throwing if you should wish to conserve your other attacks. Additionally, they can occasionally be polymorphed into more valuable gems if included in a polypile, though it's not worth wasting a wand charge on them. Rocks can also be changed in to meatballs, useful for taming and for sale in shops. Despite the name, a worthless piece of '''' glass will not shatter like other glass items if thrown against a wall or dropped while levitating. __TOC__ Gray stones are a catchall for four different objects until they are identified. * Touchstones may be used to identify glass from gems, and even the variety of gem if it is a blessed touchstone. * Luckstones will augment your luck rather impressively; if you have a blessed luckstone and no other luckitems, your good Luck will not timeout, bad Luck will, and you'll get +3 extra Luck. * Loadstones are a pun (dating back to early editions of Dungeons and Dragons): at 500 weight units, they weigh 50 times as much as the other gray stones, and they autocurse (and are generated cursed) so they cannot be dropped. * Flint stones have no particular purpose, but they do slightly better as sling ammo. Tables of gems By value Some gems' appearances can change. In these cases all the options are listed. The actual appearance is randomly chosen from the options at the beginning of each new game. The hardness of a gem can be tested by #engraving with it; if the gem is hard, the game will prompt "What do you want to engrave?"; if it is soft, "What do you want to write in the dust?" By color The gems that have a randomized appearance are marked with an asterisk, "*". Generation Twelve guaranteed real gems can be found in the corner turrets of Fort Ludios: three diamonds, three emeralds, three rubies, and three amethysts. Also, each ending of the Gnomish Mines has several guaranteed gems, at least a luckstone and an amethyst. Finally, most valuable gems cannot be generated in the main dungeon above certain dungeon levels (at level generation time), see the gems and Luck spoiler for details. Soft gems found in the early game are likely to be glass, and if they are expensive to buy back, they are worthless. (Valuable $2000 gems start at level 7, $2500 at 10, $3000 at 16, pricier even deeper.) Some players type-#name all gems to take advantage of this and of the fact the hardness/color/price/isglass quadruple is unique for each type of gem. Prices when unidentified When selling gems which have not been formally identified to a shop, you will be offered a price from one of the "Unidentified Sell Price" columns. The values here will sometimes allow you to identify the gem. The column used is fixed for each shop (but may differ between shops), which may allow more gems to be identified if the column can first be determined. The price table depends on compile time options. If you compiled Nethack yourself, check it is still valid. SLASH'EM Due to the existence of migohives, identifying four gems is slightly easier in SLASH'EM, due to the fact that only these gems are generated in migohives- the diamond, the ruby, the agate stone, and the fluorite stone. Hence, if you find a white gem in a migohive and can engrave with it, it's a diamond, and otherwise it's a fluorite stone. Blue, green, or purple gems found in migohives are also fluorite stones. If you find a red gem in a migohive, it's a ruby, and if you find an orange gem, it's an agate stone. Alchemy with gems Valuable gems can be dipped into potion of acid to make new potions. See Alchemy. *